Interestingly Judaism was first developed in a polytheistic context, but near eastern cultures eventually choose their own patron deities and the Israelites ended up favoring Yahweh. El was another contender, but he ended up being merged into Yahweh. These polytheistic roots later became controversial, so there were efforts to make them disappear in the last two thousand years, which is a shame.
These ancient religions were different, the deities used to represent various aspects of the world, or rather they were used to anthropomorphize them. People even had personal deities. Of course as cultures became more monolithic, as the divisions between them became clear, religions became more political, which is still a problem today thousands of years later.
